ENTERPRISE on Blu-Ray OFFICIAL Discussion Thread

Can't wait. So I guess the Writing Team roundtable is where Season 5 ideas will be debated?

I've been very happy with these Blu ray sets so far. The turnaround has been quick but certainly hasn't meant the new extra features have been of lesser quality than TNG.

The HD quality is a more than acceptable level above DVD, so much so I recently traded in those, with the end now in sight. I held off until I knew for sure ENT wouldn't just stop mid run on the format.

According to High-Def Digest season 3 offers the worst picture quality yet:

'Enterprise' was still shot on 35mm film in Season 3 (and then transferred to digital for broadcast), so a good deal of grain is still evident in the print. However, this season set also features a lot of digital noise, which I didn't really notice much of on the first two season sets. It's seen more easily in many of the well-lit shots (such as scenes in sickbay), but there's definitely a lot of 'mosquito noise' buzzing around in many scenes that clearly has nothing to do with the grain.

In addition to the digital noise, I also noticed occurrences of dirt on the print that popped up every now and again – usually in the form of white (although sometimes black) 'flecks' on the screen. While these are far less frequent than the noise issues mentioned above, the previous sets were pretty clean when it came to film dirt…that's not the case here. I have no idea if the production had to use a cheaper 35mm film stock in Season 3, but considering the show was always worried about budget, I suppose it's a possibility.

Added to the above problems, the video still has all the issues of prior releases. Even though all new special effects at this point in the series were being rendered in 780p, many effects still suffer from noticeable aliasing issues. Black levels are, once again, not very strong, and the murkiness is even more noticeable in Season 3, since there are only a handful of instances where episodes feature 'real' locations instead of being shot on a set.

I was on the fence about getting S3 right out of the gate. I got S1 and S2 at right around the same time. S1 I got new on eBay for $35, S2 I got the UK version on Amazon new for under $30.

I was debating getting S3 from the start, despite still having all of S2 to get through plus the last disc of S1, but given the reviews I'll wait a while until I can get it on eBay for around the $30 mark...

"If you've been collecting Paramount's Blu-ray releases of Enterprise thus far, you should not be surprised by the quality of Season Three. The 24 episodes, spread across six discs, are all presented in their original 1.78:1 broadcast aspect ratio in full 1080p HD, which once again show a good amount of detail and are faithful to the original intentions. Perhaps the only major change is that the special effects look somewhat worse, only because there are so many more of them and the 1080p upgrade is less forgiving of showing the seams. They don't look bad at all (save for the occasional use of wonky CGI), but the sheer amount of effects in the makeup and action-heavy Season Three sometimes betrays the limitations of time and money. The 5.1 DTS-HD surround track is an improvement over past seasons, if only because the emphasis on action and space battles gives it more of a workout than seasons past. Dialogue is always clear, while the action feels more sweeping and robust."

Enterprise has never looked all that great on Blu-ray, and season three is certainly no exception. This 1080p, 1.78:1-framed presentation gets the job done on a basic level, but there are many instances when the material barely looks better than the series' DVD counterpart. It's soft almost to a fault in places, absent the sort of razor definition found on The Next Generation and The Original Series Blu-ray releases. The show is depressingly dull by nature, which contributes to the flat appearance, and it does see a nice uptick in clarity and detail in brighter scenes, most of which are found in sickbay. Indeed, the bulk of the show's color consists of dark blue uniforms against the dull gray backdrops. The program cannot muster much visual intensity, leaving details flat and the image appearing rather sickly and antiquated. Other colors are often just as drab. The red, mustard, and blue-green uniform accents look nice enough, and space exteriors show fair colors on planets and the ship's warp nacelles, but a vibrant, showy program this is not. Black levels never go too bright, but they often absorb surrounding information. Flesh tones occasionally look pasty. Noise is present to excess in places, and grain is really only evident in the better-lit scenes where it often looks sharpened and artificial. A few minor pops and speckles crop up along the way as well, but they're the least of the transfer's concerns. This is certainly not a very visually appealing presentation; here's hoping that, if it's released, Deep Space Nine -- a somewhat darker show in its own right -- fares better.

Maybe it's me, but I've been watching the third season so far and it looks fine. It just sounds like many of those reviewers are not taking to account that the show was mostly shot with diffusion technique, which is the reason why most of the show had that soft look. I've noticed that many sites that review HD video have often given lower grades to films/shows that had that kind of soft look, as if the only thing that qualifies for a great looking picture is how sharp it looks. I guess ever since the hype of HD quality began that the soft look has become a negative for many. Diffusion is also not used that much these days so it's likely off putting for many not familiar with it.

The A/V quality here is good – on par with either Season One or Two. The live action footage was still shot on 35mm film at this point in the show and was scanned in HD, while the visual effects rendering was upgraded to 720p for this season (upconverted for BD obviously). As before, the image is a little bit soft occasionally, with blacks that aren’t quite as deep nor colors quite as vibrant as you might expect. For me, the visual effects are a bit of a mixed bag. The imagery is far more compelling given the ongoing war arc, but they do occasionally reveal the limitations of what was state-of-the-art at the time. But all this needs to be kept in perspective – if the A/V quality isn’t quite up to current standards, the Blu-rays are still greatly improved over the DVDs and broadcast masters.